Adaptation
by dietpunkfics
Summary: It'd taken some adjustment, being with a man. Harvey didn't expect it to be like this. (Harvey/Mike)


**For Jo, since she managed to revive my muses.**

**Thanks to Zandra for the beta! Also, if you haven't done so yet, check out my Tumblr. I post a lot of Suits spoilers and other shiny stuff.**

**Also, I'm currently working on another fic, so keep in mind that feedback makes me want to write faster ;)**

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It's times like these that he's glad he rolled the dice with Mike. He'd resisted at first, figuring their lives were complicated enough, that there were already too many secrets between them. After all, if beginning a relationship with a coworker was hazardous, then realizing you were in love with your male co worker was downright hazardous. As always, though, Mike quickly proved that any resulting headaches that might ensue were a small price to pay.

It'd taken some adjustment, being with a man. His father had raised a gentleman, someone who would provide and protect the people closest to him, and while he continued to do so at work, he and Mike had needed to find a happy medium at home.

The first time Mike had opened the door for him, it hadn't been a big deal. The hand that landed softly at the small of his back, however, had startled him, Mike's hand lying heavy against his skin. It felt completely foreign, yet comforting. A glance at Mike's face revealed a small smile playing across the other man's lips, and as their relationship had steadily grown more serious, he had found himself deferring to Mike more and more, treating him less as his subordinate and more like his partner - even at work.

If anything, he found himself enjoying it. He'd assumed that being involved with a man would follow the same traditional model he'd grown up with, with one partner taking a more submissive role. Instead, he found himself stepping back, relishing in the fact that he had a partner he viewed as an equal. It didn't hurt that he loved how Mike took care of him, how he seemed to innately know when to take the lead and, for lack of better terminology, coddle him for a bit. Unlike his previous relationships, their conversations were much more concise and he never had to wonder if Mike was trying to keep things from him - the man's face was like an open book.

Sex had been another revelation; he'd always thought that bottoming would make him 'less of a man', that it was more about the power play rather than the pleasure of it all. (It wasn't.) The first time Mike had taken him to bed, he felt like he'd shattered into a thousand pieces from the intensity of it all - it wasn't like anything he'd ever encountered. It was foreign to stroke his hand across a chest to find hard muscle instead of a soft breast, to reach down and find another man's cock in his hand rather than the soft, wet folds of a woman. It was completely familiar and new, all at once. Even something as simple as kissing was different, since Mike was the same height as him; their noses had collided more often than not when they first got involved.

Some things were the same. When they moved in together, there were two sets of cookware, towels, furniture; equal amounts of both of their things were boxed up and stored or donated to charity. There were still arguments about his obsessive love of sports, or how Mike seemed physically incapable of cleaning up after himself, but there were no ulterior motives, no secrets that had to be concealed. He and Mike had been so in tune with each other before this started, it wasn't surprising that would carry through into their home lives. The basic structure of their relationship was the same as the ones he'd had with women but there was one very important detail added: unlike his other relationships, this was one that he'd never let slip through his fingers.

Because, for the first time in his life, he was in love. For that fact alone, it was worth any negativity or discrimination they'd face; just like at work, it was the two of them against the world. And quite frankly, that was the only thing that mattered to Harvey.


End file.
